Free preventive check-up
People who have not seen their general practitioner for a medical condition for a year are invited to visit a general practitioner (who has contractual relations with the National Health Service) for a free preventive check-up. There is no patient fee for a preventive check-up with a general practitioner!
Patients can have a preventive check-up from the age of 18. Children are scheduled for preventive check-up according to the children's preventive check-up schedule.
In order to undergo a preventive check-up, the patient should contact the general practitioner’s practice in good time and arrange a date and time for the appointment. During the check-up, the general practitioner will interview the patient, assess the general state of health and, if necessary, take blood pressure and pulse, listen to the heart and lungs, palpate the abdomen, examine the lymph nodes, assess the thyroid gland, examine and palpate the mammary glands and perform other examinations.
After the check-up, the general practitioner may recommend further investigations, specialists’ consultations or recommendations on which health aspects the patient should pay attention to in the future.
Detection of cardiovascular diseases using SCORE method in the GP practice
In addition to the annual preventive check-up with a general practitioner, patients aged 40, 45, 50, 55, 60 and 65 years will have their cardiovascular risk assessed once a year according to the SCORE* method, preceded by a cardiovascular and smoking history, blood pressure, body mass index, total cholesterol, low and high density cholesterol, triglycerides, auscultation of the heart and carotid arteries and an electrocardiogram. More information.
Early cancer detection programme
The general practitioner also plays an important role in the early detection of cancer, as the general practitioner is the first specialist consulted by patients. After listening to the complaints and assessing the symptoms, the doctor can start a targeted further examination, referring the patient to the "green corridor", if necessary.
Patients can enquire about the possibility of a state-funded preventive breast or cervical check-up at the practice, for which an invitation letter is sent by the National Health Service (NVD). Any patient aged 50 to 74 years can enquire about the opportunity to be tested for colon cancer every two years to check for reasons to suspect malignant diseases. Men aged 50 to 75 can enquire about preventive examination for prostate cancer at the practice. More information.
Diabetes mellitus screening
As the body ages, everyone is more likely to get diabetes, with the fastest increase in incidence in people over 40, so blood sugar level should be checked at age 40 and every three years after age 45 if there are no risk factors for diabetes mellitus (40, 45, 48, 51, 54, 57, 60, 63, 66, 69, 72 – age in years). More information.
Important!
- Information on general practitioners providing healthcare services from the state budget is available on the National Health Service website "General practitioners".
- You can also find the information about general practitioners providing public healthcare services by calling the free information line 80001234 on weekdays from 8:30 to 17:00, by sending an e-mail to: nvd@vmnvd.gov.lv or by addressing in person in any of the territorial units of the National Health Service.